Distribution of introduced American mink in the Northern Apennine area (Central Italy)

The American mink Neovison vison is a widespread alien carnivore in Europe due to escapes from furfarms through this continent. Impacts by naturalized minkinclude competition with native species and predation ofcrayfish and small vertebrates. Therefore, an updatedmonitoring of mink distribution is required to design management plans. The American mink has been reported withan established population in North-Eastern Italy, in Sardinia, and two small nuclei respectively in the Central and inthe Northern Apennine ridge. Available information for thelatter dates back to early 1990s. In this note, we describedthe range expansion of the American mink population in theNorthern Apennine ridge and we estimate the current distribution range and the extent of occurrence by using datacollected from 2006 to 2021 through the Minimum ConvexPolygon (MCP). We compared the current distribution rangewith that of 1990s. The American mink showed a remarkablerange increase since its first escape in the Northern Apennines, thus requiring rapid actions to limit impacts on nativebiodiversity